Louise Despont’s drawings open a space that is both ancient and contemporary. In her works made on old ledger paper with the original notations obscured by successive layers of mark making, Despont creates an archaic atmosphere suggested by the paper together with the sense of layering and erasure, which evokes the palimpsestical approach of Cy Twombly.

The five artists in ‘Windows’ base their practice on a deep awareness of modernist architecture and design. Anwar Jalal Shemza (b. 1928), Simryn Gill (b. 1959), Lubna Chowdhary (b. 1964), Seher Shah (b. 1975), and Ayesha Singh (b. 1990), have lived and worked internationally; their careers span generations. Brought together, their work in diverse media resonates with each others’ in many ways, and illuminates how the presence—and memory—of built form has continued to shape and disturb personal and collective imagination.

South and Southeast Asia have for millennia been home to distinctive historic architectures, from the humble to the spectacular. The colonial era ushered in modern institutions and many new types of built forms in the region. During the twentieth century, the International Style of modern architecture and design was highly influential and pervasive.

The overwhelming presence of modern architecture is our lives today—even in its nondescript and humdrum forms—has been severally consequential. For one, the premodern past and lived memories do not disappear in the geometric grid of modernist rationality—rather, they acquire new intensities and haunt the contemporary imagination. For another, informality of built form continues to proliferate in the cities of South and Southeast Asia, some of which are now the largest urban centers in the world; built form is often inhabited in unexpected ways that escape rational planning. Finally, modern architecture is inevitably tropicalized in the region, which creates an intuitive sense of one’s being part of a larger ecology.

In all these ways, built structures bear the potential to give new inspirations to the imagination, as it shuttles between historic forms, modernist purity, and informal reuse—and as it also mines familial and childhood memories that have inhabited these spaces.

Sakshi Gallery is delighted to present 'Footprints on a broken mirror', an exhibition of recent works by Lakshman Rao Kotturu. The show, which marks the debut of the Andhra Pradesh based artist, previews on August 10 and will run through September 9, 2017.

Kotturu’s practice is a process of introspection and contemplation that offers him a space to reconcile with his experiences of loss, grief and struggle. He gazes at life through the prism of human nature and lived experience, and represents through his work, the power structures, dependence and conflict within relationships, as well as the anguish they can cause.

Kotturu articulates these poignant themes through a range of tropes. Employing quotidian objects and motifs from the animal world, he plays on their inherent meanings and manipulates their medium, to interpret the politics of relationships. The elephant, for example, symbolizes strength combined with benevolence while a crocodile depicts the barbaric tendencies of people and society. Kotturu also, at times alters the scale of his subjects, and at other times subjects them to unexpected juxtapositions. Through such use of irony and wry humor, he attempts to expand their conceptual potential and open them up to wider readings.

Abounding in commonplace references, Kotturu’s charged works have a sense of immediacy and resonance. They are evocative of both individual and collective anxieties, and in their own ingenious way, raise questions about the dynamic of human relationships, while also commenting on the power structures intrinsic within them.

About the artist:

Kotturu was born in 1987 in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh. He did his BFA in sculpture from the Andhra University, Vishakhapatnam in 2013, and completed his MVA in sculpture from M.S. University, Vadodara in 2015. He has been the recipient of several awards throughout his college years and has participated in art camps across the country. Kotturu has previously shown at Sakshi Gallery as part of a two-person exhibition in 2015, and at the Chandra Ilango Visual Art Foundation in 2014 and 2015. He lives and works in his hometown of Srikakulam.